Dietary fiber and risk of Crohn's and ulcerative colitis

A study in November's issue of Gastroenterology investigates the long-term intake of dietary fiber and risk of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Increased intake of dietary fiber has been proposed to reduce the risk of inflammatory bowel disease.

However, few prospective studies have examined associations between long-term intake of dietary fiber and risk of incident Crohn's disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC).

Dr Ashwin Ananthakrishnan and colleagues from Massachussetts, USA collected and analyzed data from 170,776 women, followed up over 26 years, who participated in the Nurses' Health Study, followed up for 3,317,425 person-years.